Mamou Council votes to rescind parking ordinance

MAMOU — The Mamou Town Council voted to rescind a parking ordinance from 2010 at Wednesday night’s monthly meeting.
The original ordinance from October of 2010 dealt with parking in public rights-of-way. Council member and Mayor Pro Tem Leisa Deshotel asked fellow council member Freddie Matthews to explain why the ordinance was created in the first place.
“There were some neighbors next to each other and there wasn’t enough parking,” Matthews said. “So one of them started parking on the street in front of the neighbor’s house.
That incident caused such an issue that the council members in 2010 addressed it by passing an ordinance.
Matthews though added that “no private citizen has ownership of public property, such as areas on the street that is available for parking.”
The council shared Matthews stance and voted unanimously to rescind the former ordinance.
Also during Wednesday’s meeting, Mamou Police Chief Brent Zackery requested that Joseph Brady be hired as part-time patrolman, that David Charlie go from part-time to full-time patrolman and that Cassidy Prudhomme be hired at $7.25 per hour to serve as a part-time dispatcher for the department.
The council approved all three personnel decisions.
Zackery then asked the members of the council to consider a pay raise for all full-time MPD patrolman.
“I am looking for full-time patrolman to go from making $11 per hour to $11.25 per hour,” Zackery said.
The council did not hesitate to put that to a vote and the council unanimously approved raising the salaries of MPD patrolmen.
Zackery also asked for a pay raise for himself. Zackery, who currently makes $2,694 per month asked the council to be paid an additional $500 per month, bringing his total salary to $3,194 per month.
The council agreed to place the ordinance on whether or not Zackery will receive that raise on the agenda for next month’s meeting.